it meant I had to file my articles
immediately because they would be trying to beat my time stamp.
I took out my second BlackBerry and texted Isabelle, “Jaycee Burke is here with a
fucking camera crew!!” My new BlackBerry was called the Torch and the tech department
promised me it would outlast BlackBerry number one, which lost half the keyboard keys
after two weeks of overuse.
“She has back hair,” Isabelle replied. “Not just fuzz, like genuine long fur.” Isabelle
was the most talented smack talker on the Style team, and the girl you wanted around
when spouting out insults about other Washington journalists. She was also the second
newest on the section, having only been at the List for a year, and still seemed to have a grasp on the outside world. Julia was my guide
at the paper, but Isabelle was my guide to the rest of the city.
“Did you know she’s leaving?” she added. “It sounds like you don’t. She got a job
with the Wall Street Journal . She’s going to be part of their election team. Can you believe it?” Isabelle wrote.
I guess the Journal didn’t discriminate against back hair.
“Who else is there?” asked Isabelle.
“Some girl with really short hair. Like Justin Bieber,” I wrote.
“Krista Gabriel. She’s with Roll Call, ” Isabelle wrote back. “You don’t know her because no one pays attention to them.
They have a pay wall. Can you imagine? She once came up to me, kissed me on each check,
and said, ‘Oh, the competition’s here.’ I mean really? We’re national, she’s local,
and that’s really all that needs to be said. Don’t bother talking to her.”
“That nice guy from the Daily Caller is here, too,” I wrote. “The one with the shaved head.”
“Did you hear that the Daily Caller has a keg? Can you imagine Upton ever letting us have a keg? He would fill it with
liquid speed,” Isabelle wrote back. I liked Isabelle. And not just because she was
friends with Apolo Ohno. She was one of the only ones at the paper who dared to have
a life. Everyone else just sacrificed their friends and family to live permanently
in a Capitolist world.
Isabelle excused herself from BBM to go file an article, and I started eavesdropping
on two reporters I didn’t know.
“I heard you can’t even expense coffee with a source at the Post anymore,” said one of them, looking down at her hot Starbucks. “Can you imagine?
Who wants to talk to you if you can’t even buy them a latte?”
“It’s true,” said her friend. “An all-staff memo went out about it. It was forwarded
to me within five minutes. Why does anyone ever send out all-staff emails anymore?
They are made public immediately. It’s so stupid. Old people really don’t understand
how this world works. Nothing is private, especially not a staff-wide email that basically
reads, ‘we’re bleeding money, get out while you can.’”
I was very caught up in their conversation when the first almost-famous person approached
me. I shook her hand, grabbed a pen, and lobbed a handful of softballs at her. “If
you could dine with the president or John Boehner, who would you choose? Which dog
would you rather own—Champ Biden, a well-bred German shepherd, or Bo Obama, a Portuguese
water dog descended from the Kennedy family canine? And do you think Michele Bachmann
would rather guest star on Teen Mom, Glee, or MTV Cribs ?”
Next up, Chevy Chase. He was in town because his wife was getting some sort of green
hippie award for eating only cardboard. Her actions were certainly noble, but of course
everyone wanted to interview her much more famous, much funnier husband.
I asked him about the delicate dance between comedy and politics, and he said the
words fuck and George Bush a lot. His affable wife chided him for speaking to a reporter that way. “He meant
all that off the record,” she offered, a last-ditch attempt to scrub my story of Republican
immediately because they would be trying to beat my time stamp.
I took out my second BlackBerry and texted Isabelle, “Jaycee Burke is here with a
fucking camera crew!!” My new BlackBerry was called the Torch and the tech department
promised me it would outlast BlackBerry number one, which lost half the keyboard keys
after two weeks of overuse.
“She has back hair,” Isabelle replied. “Not just fuzz, like genuine long fur.” Isabelle
was the most talented smack talker on the Style team, and the girl you wanted around
when spouting out insults about other Washington journalists. She was also the second
newest on the section, having only been at the List for a year, and still seemed to have a grasp on the outside world. Julia was my guide
at the paper, but Isabelle was my guide to the rest of the city.
“Did you know she’s leaving?” she added. “It sounds like you don’t. She got a job
with the Wall Street Journal . She’s going to be part of their election team. Can you believe it?” Isabelle wrote.
I guess the Journal didn’t discriminate against back hair.
“Who else is there?” asked Isabelle.
“Some girl with really short hair. Like Justin Bieber,” I wrote.
“Krista Gabriel. She’s with Roll Call, ” Isabelle wrote back. “You don’t know her because no one pays attention to them.
They have a pay wall. Can you imagine? She once came up to me, kissed me on each check,
and said, ‘Oh, the competition’s here.’ I mean really? We’re national, she’s local,
and that’s really all that needs to be said. Don’t bother talking to her.”
“That nice guy from the Daily Caller is here, too,” I wrote. “The one with the shaved head.”
“Did you hear that the Daily Caller has a keg? Can you imagine Upton ever letting us have a keg? He would fill it with
liquid speed,” Isabelle wrote back. I liked Isabelle. And not just because she was
friends with Apolo Ohno. She was one of the only ones at the paper who dared to have
a life. Everyone else just sacrificed their friends and family to live permanently
in a Capitolist world.
Isabelle excused herself from BBM to go file an article, and I started eavesdropping
on two reporters I didn’t know.
“I heard you can’t even expense coffee with a source at the Post anymore,” said one of them, looking down at her hot Starbucks. “Can you imagine?
Who wants to talk to you if you can’t even buy them a latte?”
“It’s true,” said her friend. “An all-staff memo went out about it. It was forwarded
to me within five minutes. Why does anyone ever send out all-staff emails anymore?
They are made public immediately. It’s so stupid. Old people really don’t understand
how this world works. Nothing is private, especially not a staff-wide email that basically
reads, ‘we’re bleeding money, get out while you can.’”
I was very caught up in their conversation when the first almost-famous person approached
me. I shook her hand, grabbed a pen, and lobbed a handful of softballs at her. “If
you could dine with the president or John Boehner, who would you choose? Which dog
would you rather own—Champ Biden, a well-bred German shepherd, or Bo Obama, a Portuguese
water dog descended from the Kennedy family canine? And do you think Michele Bachmann
would rather guest star on Teen Mom, Glee, or MTV Cribs ?”
Next up, Chevy Chase. He was in town because his wife was getting some sort of green
hippie award for eating only cardboard. Her actions were certainly noble, but of course
everyone wanted to interview her much more famous, much funnier husband.
I asked him about the delicate dance between comedy and politics, and he said the
words fuck and George Bush a lot. His affable wife chided him for speaking to a reporter that way. “He meant
all that off the record,” she offered, a last-ditch attempt to scrub my story of Republican
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